This invention pertains to wing pulleys, commonly used with large conveyors to transport heavy materials, such as gravel. Wing pulleys used in connection with the conveyors belts are usually provided with high friction surfaces for increased traction between the pulley and the belt. Those surfaces are usually strips or pads of rubber, secured by various methods to the outer edge of the flat spokes of the pulley wheel. Such pads become worn and have to be replaced. Further, in the process of use of the conveyor, carrying such heavy material, the individual flat spokes of the pulley wheel become bent at their outer edges, and those edges become worn, and the problem presents itself then of how to repair said terminal outer edges of the spokes. Various problems have then arisen relative to said pulley wheels.
One problem is how to secure the rubber onto the outer edge of the wheel spokes, which rubber is usually secured by gluing or vulcanizing, which requires a dismantling of the conveyor and the pulley wheels, in order to accomplish such vulcanizing to the worn outer edges of the spokes of the wheel. Such is a time-consuming, difficult and expensive task. This invention solves that problem by vulcanizing the rubber pad onto a single flat metal base plate. This invention provides for such piece of a rubber strip and its plate to be made of considerable combined length pieces, and then cut to any desired length when the need arises to replace a rubber pad to the outer terminal edge of the flat wheel spoke. The repair kit of this invention also provides a novel elongated replaceable T-cross-sectionally rigid metal strip, with said T-cross-sectional strip comprising: an upper cross bar surface, and a pair of spaced apart downwardly extending parallel legs as the leg of the T; with said spaced apart pair of legs being adapted to rest on and over the outer terminal edge of the flat wheel spoke, to support the outer edge during wheel use. The top cross bar of the T member is adapted to carry the metal base part of the rubber strip, by a spot welding of that base part thereto, as the most effective way to hold that rubber pad for use onto the cross bar of that T member. The rubber strip is vulcanized onto its metal part base plate.
The other problem arising is how to prevent a loosening of the rubber, vulcanized to its metal base plate, as a result of the heat from the spot welding of that strip metal base plate onto the cross bar of the T. This invention also solves that problem, by providing a novel method of only spot-welding the metal base strip of the rubber at a relatively few spaced apart places to the upper cross bar of the T member. Such eliminates considerable of the heat from that welding from reaching the entire vulcanized surface of the rubber strip onto its metal base plate, and thus preventing the rubber strip from becoming loosened as a result.
Thus, the provision of a pulley spoke repair lagging replaceable device, to which the rubber cushion pad is uniquely secured, and with that device as an elongated cross-sectional rigid T-member adapted to rest on and over the outer terminal edge of the flat spoke of the wheel, with the device having a pair of spaced apart parallel rigid legs adapted to support the outer surfaces of that pulley spoke, are included in the basis for this Application. By this novel repair device, needed repairs to the pulley wheel can be made in place, without having to dismantle the conveyor.